A scheme that allowed celebrities and other investors to get tax breaks by planting trees has resulted in millions of tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere, experts claim.
Television host Terry Wogan and pop stars Phil Collins and Cliff Richard were among those who saved a fortune by planting conifers on peatland they bought in the far north of Scotland.
But the UK Government scheme disturbed ancient bogs in the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland that had locked up carbon for millennia.
Now scientists have calculated that the project, which ran throughout the 1980s and ended in 1993, has likely contributed to climate change by releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
The study – which has yet to be peer-reviewed – was led by Leeds University expert Tom Sloan, in collaboration with the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, York and the Highlands & Islands plus Midlothian-based Forest Research.
Scientists who compared soil samples from eight Flow Country plantations estimated there had been a net loss of carbon at six sites and a net gain at two.
The researchers stated: ‘In the UK, tax incentives contributed to the rapid and extensive afforestation of naturally treeless, deep peatlands that were otherwise not financially attractive for forestry and typically not planted commercially.’
The tax incentive was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government to accelerate tree-planting and job-creation in rural areas.
It allowed taxpayers on the highest rate of PAYE – then standing at 60 per cent – to claim capital allowances on creating forests, which attracted grants too.
They would then sell the mature woods into state ownership, pocketing a tax-free profit as well.
One area used was the Flow Country, a vast expanse of unspoilt peatland believed to be a store for 400 million tons of carbon. A sixth of it – 172,000 acres – was drained and planted.
Snooker world champions Steve Davis and Alex Higgins were among those to have invested. MP Michael Forsyth – later Scottish Secretary – complained in the Commons in 1987 that his party’s policy had inadvertently created ‘a new generation and class of absentee landlords, consisting of pop stars [and] snooker players’.
After the National Audit Office questioned whether the taxpayer was getting value for money, the incentive was scrapped.
Terry Wogan sank £115,000 into the scheme in 1985, buying 1,430 acres of Flow Country peatland.
He sold his three plots a decade later, making a profit of around £57,000 – the only part of the dealings on which he had to pay tax.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh recently published a report into Scottish forestry policy, calling for a review of subsidies.
Professor Ian Wall, chair of the inquiry, said: ‘Tree-planting on the Flow Country was the result of landowners rushing to harvest substantial tax benefits leading to clear damage to the area’s biodiversity and, as this research identifies, a net increase in carbon in the atmosphere.
‘Woodland on deep peats needs to be removed, in the Flow Country and elsewhere, and restoration work undertaken.’
Scottish Forestry said modern planting is ‘carefully and thoroughly assessed against tight environmental regulations’.